Stereotypes, prejudice&
Discrimination
Chapter 4
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the session you should be able to:
• Describe the terms prejudice and discrimination
• Explain the difference between ‘prejudice’ and ‘discrimination
Working in groups, provide a definition and at least one example of
the following terms:
• Prejudice
• Discrimination
• Stereotypes
Meaning
• The term prejudice means "prejudgment."
• A person is prejudiced when he has formed an
attitude toward a particular social group of
people before having enough information on
which to form a knowledgeable opinion.
• A negative prejudice is when the attitude is
hostile toward members of a group.
Definition of Prejudice
• An opinion formed beforehand
without informed knowledge.
• Intolerance of or dislike for people
of a specific ethnicity (race), religion
or group.
• Prejudice is an unjustified or incorrect attitude
(usually negative) towards an individual based
solely on the individual's membership of a
social group.
• For example,
• a person may hold prejudiced views towards a
certain race, religion or gender etc.
Example
• In western countries being Muslim is wrongly
associated with terrorism despite the fact that
Islam is a religion of peace.
stereotypes
• an often unfair and untrue belief that many
people have about people or things with a
particular characteristic.
• Stereotypes can be positive or negative and
when overgeneralized are applied to all
members of a group.
Example
• For example, stereotype of Asian Americans
as highly intelligent and good at math can be
damaging professionally, academically (Trytten
et al., 2012).
How does prejudice develop?
• Children are not born
with prejudiced attitudes or with stereotypes.
They learn values and beliefs from their family,
peers, teachers, the media, and others around
them.
• In other words, children
learn prejudice through socialization. A lot of
prejudiced socialization occurs outside the
home.
Prejudice and Discrimination
• Prejudice can be just about anything:
• Race
• Age
• Religion
• Attractiveness ( height & weight)
• Accent
• Hair color
• Social economic status (e.g., money)
• Disability
• Nationality
• Someone who is prejudiced holds certain attitudes and beliefs -
commonly known as stereotypes - about a person, group of people or
a thing.
• This attitude, often negative, is usually fixed in a way that the person
is reluctant to change.
• Can you think of any examples?
•Racism: prejudice based on a person’s ethnicity.
•Sectarianism : prejudice based on a person’s religious background and/or
political beliefs.
•Disability Prejudice: Prejudice based on a person’s physical or mental abilities.
•Ageism: prejudice based on a person’s age.
•Linguistic Discrimination: when a person is treated differently because of her
native language or other characteristics of her language skills.
• Work in groups and come up with at least one real life example for
any three of the following forms of prejudice:
– Racism
– Sectarianism
– Disability prejudice
– Ageism
• Penn State Black Caucus president Holman
said:
• Prejudice is belittling because (prejudiced
people) don’t see you as a person, they see
you as a color, they see you as a stereotype,
see you as a character,” Holman said. “And
they don’t see you as their equal.”
• Prejudice is often linked to power known as “Institutional
discrimination”.
• In some countries laws segregated public places into white and non-
white areas.
For many years black Americans fought for an end to racial segregation,
it officially ended in the USA in 1965
UN Photo/A Tannenbaum
Known as Apartheid, racial segregation ended in South Africa in 1994!
• Also, woman have been discriminated for many
years:
Denied entry to higher education
Denied the right to vote
Denied equal pay for equal work
Denied positions of power and authority in the Emily Pankhurst campaigned for
women’s rights in the UK. She was
religious organisations which still goes on today. named as one of the most
important people of the 20 th
century by Time Magazine in 1999.
Development of Prejudice
• Socialization (e.g., parents, peers, media)
lack of diversity in kids / kids learn to perceive the differences
• Relative status and competition (e.g., for resources)
Unequal Status: realistic conflict theory - direct competition between
groups over valued resources (jobs, schools)
• Cognitive processes (e.g., information processing, decision making) (e.g.,
Negative behavior = more memorable, influential; Minority status =
distinctive)
“prejudice is by-product of our thinking processes”
Prejudice is more likely to occur and persist where:
• Groups have different or conflicting key values.
• Others are seen as different.
• People see their identity in terms of belonging to particular
groups.
• Their groups discriminate against each other.
• Fear that other groups pose a threat.
Causes of Prejudices
Prejudices can be created by many factors:
Fear, such as xenophobia (racism/dislike against people from
other countries)
Inadequacy/insecurity
Ignorance
Negative experiences of a certain group
Consider the following:
Where have your stereotypes come from and how have they
developed?
How accurate are they in describing the group they are
associated with?
Do you feel you want to change any of your stereotypes?
How difficult would this be for you?
Positive and Negative Prejudice
• Blacks are lazy, Scots are miserly, old people
have poor memory, women are irrational, and
so on. Yet it is not hard to find examples of
positive content within these same mental
representations: Blacks are musically talented,
Scots are excellent curlers, old people give
sage advice, and women are compassionate.
What is Discrimination?
• Discrimination is the unfair treatment of an individual because of
his/her membership of a particular group
• Discrimination is prejudice in action
Basis of Discrimination
Discrimination can be based on such things as:
Ethnicity
Religious beliefs, or non-belief
Age
Disability
Gender
Direct Discrimination occurs when an individual is treated lesser than
those belonging to other groups.
For example, the use of the following words and/or terms in a job
adverts is direct discrimination:
• Gender specific job titles eg “male teacher”, “female cleaner”
• Age specific words eg “mature”, “young and energetic”
• Specifying preference for able-bodied applicants eg “must be
physically fit”
• Note: In certain circumstances, it is legal to ask for certain
requirements for certain jobs.
• For example, it may be legal to specify “female care worker” when
advertising for a job in a women’s refuge.
• Indirect Discrimination can be when certain requirements or
conditions can only be met by a certain group because of age, gender,
ethnicity, religion:
For example, if a supermarket chain had a policy that states that
all female operators have to wear dresses, this would exclude
certain groups of females, such as Muslim women whose dress
code includes wearing a shalwar (trousers) and kameez (top), for
competing for employment.
Stereotypes, Ideas, and Beliefs
Attitudes
Attitudes and
and Emotions
Emotions
Prejudice
Prejudice
Discrimination
Discrimination
Review
• Stereotyping: generalisations about the "typical" characteristics of
members of a certain group
• Prejudice: attitude toward the members of a group based solely on
their membership in that group (can be positive or negative)
• Discrimination: positive or negative actions/behaviour, often based
on prejudiced beliefs
Reducing Prejudice
• Social Learning
- teach parents to socialize children to be tolerant
- Increase intergroup contact
- contact must involve cooperation and interdependence
- norms favoring group equality must exist
- focus on individual-based (vs. category) processing
• Extended Contact Hypothesis
- knowing that members of in-group have formed friendships with out-group
members may reduce prejudice
Cont-
• Focus on similarities between in-group and
nonthreatening out-group
• Re Categorization
- reset boundaries between “us” and “them”, so former
out-group is now included in in-group
• Focus on others’ specific traits and outcomes rather
than on group stereotypes.
